There is already known a sheet material accumulating apparatus for accumulating printed sheets (they may be a handbill etc. and may be one printed sheet or a “folded book” obtained by folding it in two or more) printed by a rotary press into a columnar body by arranging them in a mutually overlapping state while being aligned in orientation, and in some cases, including processing of binding an accumulated bundle of this columnar body (hereinafter this bundle is referred to as “accumulated bundle” and any object that can be made into an accumulated bundle including the printed sheets and the folded book is referred to as a “sheet material”) with binding band (for example, see patent documents 1 and 2).
An apparatus that is called a “vertical type” among the sheet material accumulating apparatuses of this kind has a posture conversion unit for converting the sheet material in a flatted posture into that in a standing posture by guiding it from its one end side to a downward flow, and a table top that waits the sheet material at a lower position of the posture conversion unit, supports the arrived sheet material sequentially in a standup posture, and accumulates it in a longitudinally arranged state.
In many cases, the sheet material sent out from the rotary press etc. is often in an overlap posture that a head side in a conveyance direction is on a top in the overlapping relation and a back end side in the conveyance direction is on a bottom in the overlapping relation. On the other hand, the sheet material arriving at the table top needs to be always positioned to the most back end plane referring to the accumulated bundle being accumulated on the table. For this purpose, it is necessary to invert top and bottom of the sheet material (up side down) so that regarding the overlap posture of the sheet material, a head side in the conveyance direction may be on a bottom in the overlapping relation and a back end side in the conveyance direction is on the top in the overlapping relation before the sheet material arrives at the posture conversion unit.
Therefore, conventionally, the carrying-in path of the sheet material from the rotary press is set such that the sheet material is temporarily guided to a lower part of this sheet material accumulating apparatus, allowing it to pass under the apparatus, makes it take a U-turn in a longitudinal direction so that it may become a upward somersault state after that, and makes it arrive at the posture conversion unit.
On the other hand, in the case where a binding processing unit is provided at the downstream position of the table top, since this binding processing unit may be intervened by a manual work for a finishing inspection of the accumulated bundle and the binding band, carrying out of the accumulated bundle, maintenance for the binding mechanism, etc., a height of this binding processing unit is set to be about at a level of waist position and its peripheral part of an operator. Therefore, with the intention of matching the table top with this binding processing unit in height, the table top is set at the level of waist position and its peripheral part of the operator.
Patent document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-118511
Patent document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. HEI10-35984